I should have considered it wrong to have finished the Frieze before the room for its accommodation and the funds for its completion were available.

My fear of life is necessary to me, as is my illness. Without anxiety and illness, I am a ship without a rudder. My art is grounded in reflections over being different from others. My sufferings are part of my self and my art. They are indistinguishable from me, and their destruction would destroy my art. I want to keep those sufferings

I don’t believe in an art that is not born out of man’s need to open his heart.

I find it difficult to imagine an afterlife, such as Christians, or at any rate many religious people, conceive it, believing that the conversations with relatives and friends interrupted here on earth will be continued in the hereafter.

Without fear and disease, my life would be like a boat without oars.

I learned early about the misery and dangers of life, and about the afterlife, about the external punishment which awaited the children of sin in Hell.

Youth must go ahead and prosper. These young painters are all very talented people, but they all paint frescoes.